Tuesday, April 26, 2011

I think I mentioned it somewhere on the blog before. I always had a last-minute and extremely disappointing Halloween costume when the High Holiday rolled around. No home-made hand-sewn dinosaur masterpiece by my mother (who subscribed to Woman's Day and Good Housekeeping, but never made anything from scratch or knitted or sewed or scrapbooked).

Thinking back. I can't say there's one costume that stands out as the year I'll never forget. A boxed Batman was fun....and there was the year I was a boxed Devil. And a boxed Casper. Birthday cakes and mashed potatoes came from boxes, so I guess it makes sense my costumes did too.

If I was forced to choose, I think the Devil would be top of the list. No particular reason unfortunately.

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It wasn't a scary one for me...for my Senoir year of High School I dressed as a Hare Krishna. It was a small town and small school. I ordered the skin cap from the Johnson Smith catalog. Wore my sister's orange pajamas and an old orange sheet my mother had....the teachers got a kick out of it but my classmates were not thrilled. I loved it but no pics :(

We had a local costume contest at the park every year. My mom, the MacGyver of costumes, would help us out and we would often run away with the top prize.

The best year? My two younger sisters and I were a scarecrow family. I was the dad. My mom got a burlap type material, painted the faces on them, stitched straw type material in for hair and then we dressed 'baggy country' style with hats. I wore my old mans, sweaty, crush, broken out cowboy hat. I was offered a giant bowl of mini bars in trade for the hat. One look from my dad said "no deal"

We went on to be the Marx Brothers, Fruit of the Loom, and a Halloween coloring book and and two Crayolas. My sister, as the purple crayon, fell and rolled down a hill. Then she couldn't get up. I almost pee'd my coloring book laurhing.

My friend and I were older and going to a bar's halloween costume party. (We sewed our costumes) I was the "trix" rabbit and she was a carrot! Had to drive my car with the window down so my "ear" would fit in the car. She had trouble getting in the car because the carrot narrowed down by her knees. no pictures either.

Did quite a cool last minute Reaper costume in college one year. I talked everyone else into dressing up and heading downtown. It was the 80's so there was a lot of"flash dance" stuff and leg warmers. I managed to get my hands on some paint and did it up right. it was great seeing peoples reaction- lets just say a lot of people avoided me that evening.

When I was five or six, I went as a bat. Expecting everyone to be shrieking in fear at the child-sized chiropteran nightmare I very clearly was, I was disappointed to instead be bombarded with "What an adorable Batman outfit!" I distinctly remember dubiously asking one offending adult "Does Batman's cap have finger bones? Does it have membranes?" My mother ended up taking some lipstick from her purse and drawing blood dripping from the corners of my mouth. Looking back, that probably just confused people into thinking the Dark Knight had taken vigilante justice too far. It stopped the comments, though. Thanks Mom.

I'm sitting here laughing at Joel's story--can just see a little guy completely disgusted with everyone's reaction! made me think of all the costumes I made for my kids when they were little: dinosaurs, vampires, mummy, frankenstein (that was a good one), Indiana Jones, sherlock holmes,Hercule Poirot, witches (scary kind), Capt. Hook, --that was another really good one--my son looked exactly like a miniature Dustin Hoffman Captain Hook. fun remembering all these--must dig out some pics.

I doubt anyone here will the slightest idea what the hell I'm talking about, but one year I went as a "Bionicle". They were these six inch tall snap-kit robots from Lego, released in the early 2000's, with movable limbs. The whole gimmick was the "Bionicles" wore ancient looking masks that gave them super powers, and carried over sized blades. My mom made the costume, and it was comprised of PVC pipe, milk jugs made into a mask, foamcore board swords, and a chest plate. And duct tape. LOTS of duct tape. I felt superhuman walking around that costume. Too bad it could only be worn once.

My best home made costume was Frankenstein, 2 boxes on top of the shoulders and 1 box on top of my head for the square look. Even had a light weight chain to finish the look.Best store bought was a kit that I had to put together. It was this huge alien bug head with bulbus eyes. Had lots of comments all night.

Can't remember a particularly special costume, but I can remember some particularly special costumes ideas.

One year my friends and I wanted to do a 30 second trick or treat skit at every house. It would be a sideshow thing with a ringmaster, an evil clown, a ventriloquist and his dummy. I was TOTALLY gonna be the ventriloquist dummy. The skit would go something along the lines of the ringmaster introducing everyone, the clown doing a little trick, then the ventriloquist trying to encourage his dummy to say Trick or Treat. The skit never happened. We all just bought masks instead.

One year I was feeling particularly proud of coming up with the idea of doing Old-School halloween costumes. A sheet ghost, a monster with a paper bag mask, a cardboard box robot and something else. This was before I found your blog, so you should be proud of me too.Somehow, my friends liked the idea as well. It didn't happen, we all just bought masks instead.

Of the ones I can remember.. sometime in the late 80's I was dressed up as Madonna. I was fairly young and had no say in the matter. I blame my older sister. I'm glad for the pictures otherwise I wouldn't have remembered. As for something I can remember with unfortunately no pictures that I know of, I dressed up as Princess Mononoke. Oh,then there was the werewolf..(which I proudly wore to work) yeah. Those were my two favs!

Mom mom made our costumes when I was little. I thin princess Leia at age 5 was the one that sticks out in memory most. In college one year me and three girlfriends went as caveman prostitutes with a caveman pimp (I was an anthropology major and we went as an evolutionary theory,<-NERD) We drew on unibrows and had ratty wigs on with chicken bone necklaces. It was fun.

This isn't exactly a favorite costume, but it stands out because we one a costume contest. In the 1980's the California Raisins were riding a wave of popularity, a group of friends and I needed last minute costumes, so we used black garbage bags stuffed with crinkled newspaper and white gloves, black pants and white sneakers. We hated the costumes but won a school contest so I guess it all worked out. But I still can't hear Creedence Clearwater's "heard it through the grapevine" without cringing...

I don't have fond Halloween costume memories. I was awkward growing up and I always felt exposed in whatever girly costume was made up for me. I was a bunny when I was in the 5th grade, the Scarecrow and a Gypsy Woman(Sigh. Total last minute costumes, too)and I can't even remember what else. I ended up being a REALLY COOL Leatherface when I was like, 20 or something. That is probably my fave but how sad is it that I really didn't love the costumes I had in my youth when I could properly enjoy Halloween?

I had not decided one year if I just wanted to stay home, hand out candy, and keep an eye on my decorations... or head out and Trick or Treat. Last minute, I decided to go. I grabbed a marker and the first thing that came to my head was crop circles. I took my shirt off and drew a large connecting pattern on my chest, arms and face. Each house my friend and I went up to... "what are you"... I'm a crop circle.

Though not my favorite, one year when I was around twelve or thirteen, my mom wouldn't make or buy a costme for me, so she made me wear one she had made for my brother for an ice skating competition. It was almost a neon shade of yellow with white cowboy fringe across the chest and back and down the arms, white applique flowers and LOTS of rhinestones. There was a white cowboy hat. I wore my white cowboy boots she'd bought me earlier in the year. They had red and purple flowers all over them.

It's gotta be my "Fred" costume. For years my parents made a raggedy dummy wearing a straw hat & cheap monster mask (wig attached, K-Mart special) & sat "Fred" in an old rocking chair on the porch. The TOTs had to go right by him on the way to the candy bowl. My folks were definitely into Halloween & even had a tape player going behind "Fred's" chair that sounded like someone whispering.

One year Pop said, "Hey, why don't you be "Fred" this time?" IMO I was an excellent "Fred," & after all the years of the motionless dummy stuffed with newspapers, I'd like to think a few TOTs wet their pants when "Fred" got up & stood behind them while they grabbed their candy.

I forgot to mention what my favorite costume was. It was 6th grade and I wanted to be a vampire. My sister (who is 18 yrs older then me) was a dancer and very good at doing stage make up...so she came to my elementary school to make me up. I had a long white flowy dress on and a black long haired wig. With the make up that was done I was SUPER creepy! I LOVED IT! I won scariest costume that year after our Halloween parade. Absolutely my favorite costume ever!